The Aeronaut's Windlass (The Cinder Spires, #1)

by Jim Butcher

Grimm took a quick head count and began to give the order to move out, when he paused to see one last phantom appear out of the haze. For a moment he wasn’t sure what he was looking at. Then the phantom stepped closer, and he could see. Bridget Tagwynn trudged out of the haze, covered so thickly in dust that she might have been an animated statue. She moved slowly, her face locked in a rictus of determination. Sir Benedict’s limp form was draped over one of her shoulders, his arms swinging loosely where they hung down her back. She held one arm wrapped around the back of his thighs, keeping his weight balanced. In that hand, she clutched a dust-covered volume. In the other arm she carried the limp form of a dust-covered cat, presumably Master Rowl. One of her booted feet left partially bloodied prints in the thin layer of dust on the ground, but she had not let the injury stop her. She simply walked, putting one foot steadily in front of the other in small, deliberate, balanced steps.

How many times must I read this book before this moment no longer makes me cry?